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lethal753

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 23, 2015
29
9
My new M1 Macbook Pro crashes (and restarts) when on battery and connected to my external 4K monitor. No crashes when plugged in clamshell mode. Anybody have the same issue or know how to fix it?
 

James_C

macrumors 68030
Sep 13, 2002
2,847
1,897
Bristol, UK
Probably pulling too much power on battery, you will need to keep it plugged into the mains.

Your MBP should not need to be plugged in to the mains to work with a external display, so something is wrong. First step would be to reset the power management system or SMC

 
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alan7467

macrumors member
Mar 16, 2011
78
14
I'm getting a lot of hard crashes on my MacBook Pro M1 as well while attached to an external display. That's with a power source though. In addition the color profile and scaling is often messed up on the monitor when waking the MacBook from sleep. Also getting odd grays and blacks at random in fullscreen apps. Taking them out of fullscreen then back usually resolves it. Very buggy.

I haven't seen a larger discussion regarding the crashing, but I have seen one about the other external display issues. Hopefully a Big Sur patch will come out soon to address these issues.
 

SlCKB0Y

macrumors 68040
Feb 25, 2012
3,431
557
Sydney, Australia
Your MBP should not need to be plugged in to the mains to work with a external display, so something is wrong. First step would be to reset the power management system or SMC


Do the M1 Macs use SMC?
 

lethal753

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 23, 2015
29
9
Thanks for the responses. I did do the SMC reset, it may have helped. I have the Samsung 4K U28E590D. I connect using an HDMI to USB C adapter. After a 15-20min of display connection on battery, the screen goes blank for about 2 seconds and then back to normal (it did this before reset as well). I have repeated this 5 times. The crash/reboot has happened once after 3 hrs of continuous use (where I lost a lot of my unsaved work) before the SMC reset. Only time will tell if it actually worked.
 

lethal753

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 23, 2015
29
9
I'm getting a lot of hard crashes on my MacBook Pro M1 as well while attached to an external display. That's with a power source though. In addition the color profile and scaling is often messed up on the monitor when waking the MacBook from sleep. Also getting odd grays and blacks at random in fullscreen apps. Taking them out of fullscreen then back usually resolves it. Very buggy.

I haven't seen a larger discussion regarding the crashing, but I have seen one about the other external display issues. Hopefully a Big Sur patch will come out soon to address these issues.
Not sure what is going on, try the SMC reset and let us know if it fixed it.
 

James_C

macrumors 68030
Sep 13, 2002
2,847
1,897
Bristol, UK
Not sure what is going on, try the SMC reset and let us know if it fixed it.

My apologies, an SMC Reset on an Intel Mac can fix these types of problems, but it appears that the new M1 Macs don't have a SMC in them. Looks my suggestion was not valid. Perhaps just restarting you Mac may have helped.
 

alan7467

macrumors member
Mar 16, 2011
78
14
This morning I reset the PRAM and deleted this file before rebooting:

~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.windowserver.[UUID].plist

...and thus far my display weirdness has gone away. At least with DisplayPort. So hopefully this solution sticks.
 

lethal753

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 23, 2015
29
9
This morning I reset the PRAM and deleted this file before rebooting:

~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.windowserver.[UUID].plist

...and thus far my display weirdness has gone away. At least with DisplayPort. So hopefully this solution sticks.
On Apple's website it says PRAM reset instructions only apply to Intel Macs. There are 2 SMC reset articles, same instructions however one says only for Intel Macs. Are there another set of instructions you followed for PRAM reset? Also after deleting that file, did it regenerate upon reboot?
 

lethal753

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 23, 2015
29
9
I connected to my 4K Samsung TV, no issues at all. Must be some monitor and MBP compatibility problem even though both displays are Samsung.
 
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